I've only started to notice this as of late, but as I've taken notice I realize that it's been happening since about the time Kristin left until now. When I'm at home I have managed to develop a much more personal and close relationship with my pets. I'm not talking about anything sick or bestial, so don't even let your mind wander in that direction. No, what I mean is that I've started to cultivate individual relationships with each animal instead of treating each animal the same, as just a pet.
Stitch, mine and Kristin's baby, has received a lot of attention and a lot of conversation during the last couple of months. I suppose it helps that it also appears as if he's developed a feline attachment to me as well. Whenever I am home alone, you can bet that Stitch is going to be following me around the house. At night before I go to bed, you can often find him wandering into my room and jumping up onto my bed clamoring for attention. He'll rub his head against my arms as I sit at my computer or jump on my lap if I'm sitting down. When we spend long portions of a day together you might even catch me talking to him. It's weird, I know, but it's nice to have someone to just listen and give an occasional meow of assent to what you are saying.
Sammy, the fat cat of the house has been spending a lot more time sleeping with me at night. Both Stitch and Sam will usually be in my room when I got to bed, but when I lie down to go to sleep Sam will nuzzle up right next to me whereas Stitch runs off to play. The relaxing (and very loud) purring of Sam helps me to get to sleep at night. Knowing that there's someone else there next to me, even if he's not human, is reassuring.
Mystique, the oldest cat of the house, is also the most talkative to me. She's pretty shy, but when the other cats aren't around, she'll gladly keep me company. One thing that I can always depend on Mystique for is tv watching companionship. As soon as I lie down onto the couch in the living room and flip on the tube, she'll jump up on the couch next to me and either lie on my stomach or curl up next to me.
Karma, our crazy house dog, who has actually been spending more time outdoors lately since it's been relatively nice out, is easily the most playful of all the animals. As soon as I pick up her blue clown toy, she knows it's play time. She is also the most intelligent of our pets and has a great knack for reading moods. On the days when I feel lonely, you can be assured that Karma will be my shadow which means a lot, even if it's just coming from a dog. For a while Karma would stay with me at night as well, but she's defected to staying with my mom upstairs. I know that will change with the first thunderstorm, however, because Karma gets totally freaked out at even the smallest of storms.
I don't know if I've grown closer to my animal companions because Kristin has been gone or I simply have grown more attached to them, but either way I feel a lot more comfortable at home by myself because of it. Usually I would hate being at home by myself since I detest that feeling you get when you're completely alone, but with the relationships I've formed with my pets, I know that even though no other humans are around, I've still got a few fun friends keeping me company.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Cookie Monster Madness
Apparently the Cookie Monster, the big furry muppet from Sesame Street, has now realized that cookies are only a "sometimes" food as opposed to nutritional foods that are "anytime" foods. I'm sorry Mr. Monster, but you can't do this to me. I won't let you tarnish my memories of Sesame Street simply because we've got millions of fat kids out there. I used to be one of those fat kids, but I didn't become fat because I ate a shit-ton of cookies after I saw the Cookie Monster do it on my favorite childhood show. No, got fat because I was lazy and didn't eat healthy in general. What really got me the most was this quote:
Let's look at the logic of this. Sesame Street's creators think that by seeing Cookie Monster eat tons of cookies that they will do the same. In fact, I'm sure most kids don't have the ability to do that if their parents are doing even a halfway decent job of raising their kids. Any child who has unrestrained access to cookies and candy is a victim of terrible parenting. Even though most children should not be able to stuff themselves on cookies because they saw Cookie Monster do the same thing, the creators thought that it was a bad image to purvey. Fair enough.
The image that Cookie Monster will now exude is one that is probably more dangerous, though. Children eat meals, that's obvious and undisputable. By seeing Cookie Monster overeat on his "anytime" foods, kids will supposedly get the idea that they should also ingest as much as they can when presented with a meal instead of pacing themselves or limiting their portions. Now I don't care how healthy of food you feed your child, if he/she is eating every last thing that's put in front of them, they're going to get just as fat as if they were occasionally eating a large batch of cookies.
What's even more disturbing is that Cookie Monster will occasionlly ingest objects. Yeah, let's tell kids that it's ok to eat random crap. Don't want to clean up that fork after you're done eating? Just scarf it down with the last bit of green beans. Napkin touching your food? Why not use it to pick up what it's touching and just eat the whole damn concoction!
Cookie Monster, I am pleading with you, don't change! Stay the big, blue, cookie scarfing, gravelly voiced, monster I've always known and loved.
The furry one also plans to try different kinds of cookies (read: healthier cookies) rather than his just staple, chocolate chip.Ok, so let me get this straight. Cookie Monster used to eat only cookies and eat them by the truckload. Now he only eats cookies "sometimes". On top of that, he is going to try out new cookies healthier. Ok, fine, I suppose I can go along with that. Teaching kids not to eat tons of cookies all of the time is a good thing, even though I don't think Sesame Street's Cookie Monster has been one of the causes of mass cookie consumption but that's neither here nor there. What blows my mind, however, is the fact that he's just fine to gorge himself on other food, even to the point of eating an occasional object.
But will he still scarf his food? Yes, plus the occasional object, Truglio said.
But isn't that unhealthy? Her reply: He's still Cookie Monster.
Let's look at the logic of this. Sesame Street's creators think that by seeing Cookie Monster eat tons of cookies that they will do the same. In fact, I'm sure most kids don't have the ability to do that if their parents are doing even a halfway decent job of raising their kids. Any child who has unrestrained access to cookies and candy is a victim of terrible parenting. Even though most children should not be able to stuff themselves on cookies because they saw Cookie Monster do the same thing, the creators thought that it was a bad image to purvey. Fair enough.
The image that Cookie Monster will now exude is one that is probably more dangerous, though. Children eat meals, that's obvious and undisputable. By seeing Cookie Monster overeat on his "anytime" foods, kids will supposedly get the idea that they should also ingest as much as they can when presented with a meal instead of pacing themselves or limiting their portions. Now I don't care how healthy of food you feed your child, if he/she is eating every last thing that's put in front of them, they're going to get just as fat as if they were occasionally eating a large batch of cookies.
What's even more disturbing is that Cookie Monster will occasionlly ingest objects. Yeah, let's tell kids that it's ok to eat random crap. Don't want to clean up that fork after you're done eating? Just scarf it down with the last bit of green beans. Napkin touching your food? Why not use it to pick up what it's touching and just eat the whole damn concoction!
Cookie Monster, I am pleading with you, don't change! Stay the big, blue, cookie scarfing, gravelly voiced, monster I've always known and loved.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Tourgasm
This last weekend the family traveled down to Ames, Iowa to visit my brother, Randy, at ISU. I hadn't been down there to visit him other than when we've had to move him down or move him back home. On Saturday night Randy and I caught the ISU stop of the Tourgasm comdey tour, which featured the comedians Gary Gulman, Robert Kelly, and Dane Cook.
I'd been looking forward to seeing this show ever since my brother told me about it a couple of weeks ago. I was a fan of the NBC show Last Comic Standing, for which Gary Gulman is most well known. He was one of the finalists on the second season and was also one of the best performers in the Season 1 vs. Season 2 season of the show and was also, in my opinion, one of the funniest performers on the show throughout its run.
The show started a solid 20 minutes late, no doubt in part to Gary getting really drunk before the show, but more on that later. The show started by having the tour orgainizer, Jay Davis, come out to introduce the opening act as well as doing a 15 minute stand-up routine of his own. I would have actually enjoyed a longer performance from Davis as he was genuinely funny as opposed to most organizers who come out and use tired and cliched bits to open up the show. He best moment was when he described how to get back at those guys who like to just hang out naked in the locker room of the local gym. The set up was great and the final punchline, involving an unoccupied bathroom stall, a leather belt, and some voice acting was fall out of your seat funny.
Gary Gulman was the first comedian up and he performed a 25 minute set. I had pretty high expectations for him coming in which were unfortunately not able to be completely lived up to. He was good, but not as good as I'd have hoped. The first annoyance about his set is that he resorted to using some of his material that was previously used on Last Comic Standing. Since I'd already heard it, it wasn't quite as funny. The second annoyance about his set is that he resorted to whispering a lot of the time which meant you'd sometimes have to strain to hear him. Lastly, the biggest annoyance was that he seemed off of his game throughout. He wasn't quite as sharp as other times I've seen him perform, but he owned up about 3/4 of the way into his set that he was quite hammered. This easily explained why he seemed off.
Robert Kelly was the comedian up and he performed for about 40 minutes and pretty much all of his set was unbelievably hilarious. I laughed the most and the hardest throughout his set and he was easily my favorite of the night. The good majority of his set dealt with fat people, how he dealt with being fat, and what it was like having a girlfriend and being fat. Seriously, Robert was one funny dude who rattled off hilarious crap at a breakneck pace. If I can find his cd online for cheap somewhere I'm definitely going to pick it up.
Dane Cook, the headliner of the show, was also quite the funny guy. His style was somewhat different than the other two in that most of his routine followed the pattern of setting the stage by telling a story or describing a situation and then ending the description with a really funny quip or way of handling the situation. With this style of comedy, the laughs weren't a continual stream like they were with Kelly, but when his stuff hit, it hit with a comedic brick and you wouldn't be able to hold back your laughter. Dane's performance ran a little over an hour and was quite energetic. It made me wonder how he did it night in and night out... although the tour is only for a month, so maybe he just gets loaded up on caffeine and other things to keep him going.
All in all, for my $15 (actually, my brother's $15 since I haven't paid him back yet), it was a great show and I'd suggest checking out the Tourgasm site and seeing if it's hitting your area soon. If not, there's going to be a dvd made using various pieces of the shows on the tour, so you could probably pick up one of those when it comes out. I'm pretty sure I will.
I'd been looking forward to seeing this show ever since my brother told me about it a couple of weeks ago. I was a fan of the NBC show Last Comic Standing, for which Gary Gulman is most well known. He was one of the finalists on the second season and was also one of the best performers in the Season 1 vs. Season 2 season of the show and was also, in my opinion, one of the funniest performers on the show throughout its run.
The show started a solid 20 minutes late, no doubt in part to Gary getting really drunk before the show, but more on that later. The show started by having the tour orgainizer, Jay Davis, come out to introduce the opening act as well as doing a 15 minute stand-up routine of his own. I would have actually enjoyed a longer performance from Davis as he was genuinely funny as opposed to most organizers who come out and use tired and cliched bits to open up the show. He best moment was when he described how to get back at those guys who like to just hang out naked in the locker room of the local gym. The set up was great and the final punchline, involving an unoccupied bathroom stall, a leather belt, and some voice acting was fall out of your seat funny.
Gary Gulman was the first comedian up and he performed a 25 minute set. I had pretty high expectations for him coming in which were unfortunately not able to be completely lived up to. He was good, but not as good as I'd have hoped. The first annoyance about his set is that he resorted to using some of his material that was previously used on Last Comic Standing. Since I'd already heard it, it wasn't quite as funny. The second annoyance about his set is that he resorted to whispering a lot of the time which meant you'd sometimes have to strain to hear him. Lastly, the biggest annoyance was that he seemed off of his game throughout. He wasn't quite as sharp as other times I've seen him perform, but he owned up about 3/4 of the way into his set that he was quite hammered. This easily explained why he seemed off.
Robert Kelly was the comedian up and he performed for about 40 minutes and pretty much all of his set was unbelievably hilarious. I laughed the most and the hardest throughout his set and he was easily my favorite of the night. The good majority of his set dealt with fat people, how he dealt with being fat, and what it was like having a girlfriend and being fat. Seriously, Robert was one funny dude who rattled off hilarious crap at a breakneck pace. If I can find his cd online for cheap somewhere I'm definitely going to pick it up.
Dane Cook, the headliner of the show, was also quite the funny guy. His style was somewhat different than the other two in that most of his routine followed the pattern of setting the stage by telling a story or describing a situation and then ending the description with a really funny quip or way of handling the situation. With this style of comedy, the laughs weren't a continual stream like they were with Kelly, but when his stuff hit, it hit with a comedic brick and you wouldn't be able to hold back your laughter. Dane's performance ran a little over an hour and was quite energetic. It made me wonder how he did it night in and night out... although the tour is only for a month, so maybe he just gets loaded up on caffeine and other things to keep him going.
All in all, for my $15 (actually, my brother's $15 since I haven't paid him back yet), it was a great show and I'd suggest checking out the Tourgasm site and seeing if it's hitting your area soon. If not, there's going to be a dvd made using various pieces of the shows on the tour, so you could probably pick up one of those when it comes out. I'm pretty sure I will.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Adema - Planets CD Review
If you somehow decide to let yourself be taken in by this nu-metal virus that’s floating around, make sure you don’t end up afflicted with the Adema-strain, a vicious version of nu-metal that will rot your ears out. Even with the addition of a new singer and a slight refinement to their sound, Adema still comes across no better than a second-rate attempt to be a radio friendly nu-metal band. The only reason Adema had any amount of recognition when their first two cds were released was solely because Mark Chavez was Jonathan Davis’ younger brother. Without Mark in the band anymore, maybe Adema could have shed their Korn-lite vibe, but they couldn’t quite do away with it completely.
Planets is quite a bit mellower than previous releases, so much so that a couple of songs have a decidedly Nickelback and 3 Doors Down feel to them. “Tornado”, for example, is an overly blatant rip-off of 3 Doors Down crappy hard rock sound, which is sad simply because Adema are emulating 3 Doors Down… 3 DOORS DOWN! Who, in their right mind, would want to channel such a watered down rock band? The great majority of the rest of this disc (the songs not aping clichéd rock bands) takes on a very somber and downtrodden tone, leaving it to feel very boring, even during some of the better songs.
Yes, there are a couple of decent songs to be found on this disc. The title track isn’t too bad, but it’s not much more than your basic emotional rock tune. Other than the title track, “Barricades in Time” is pretty much the only tolerable track. It fits perfectly into the mellow verse, a little bit heavy bridge, really heavy chorus template, but it’s listenable, which is about the best compliment you can give any of the songs on this disc.
When you take the time to think about it, there really isn’t any reason for this cd to exist, and it’s pretty sad that projects such as this get green-lighted by labels, especially Earache, a label that usually releases decent stuff. Musically, Planets is inferior to most of what is out there and from a sales standpoint, this cd is not going to move a lot of copies, so why is it even on the shelves? Some questions will unfortunately never be answered, and this is probably one of them.
A New Way to Trade Things
I've got a whole crap-ton of old cd's, dvd's, and video games that I no longer need or want. I used to list them on ebay, but they don't really sell on there any more. Even when they did, ebay's fees were so high that it was somewhat pointless to sell stuff on there since I wasn't really getting any money for my stuff and the time I spent listing it just wasn't worth it.
I also used to use Half.com but then there was the whole fiasco over it closing down and ebay requiring all of Half's users to migrate over to ebay stores, so I tried that and figured it might work out ok. It didn't. To complicate matters, during the migration less than half of my items even transferred over to my ebay store. So I had half of my stuff still over at Half.com while the other half was in an ebay store. It should be pointed out that I had about 300 items listed between the two. Later, ebay announced they'd keep Half.com open. Great, so a good chunk of what I had previously listed on Half.com got moved over to ebay and now they only way to get it back onto Half.com was to enter it all back in (ebay offered no way for ebay store items to be migrated back into Half.com).
It was about that time that I just gave up selling small ticket items online completely. I still have a few things listed on Half.com, but not much. I really hate having all of these old cds and dvds and stuff just sitting around, but I really don't have any way to get rid of them other than tossing them out or giving them away... until I stumbled across BarterBee. It's an online trading site. You list stuff to trade with people and get points when other users request your stuff and you can use those points to request items from people. It's a neat concept.
I should note, however, that there isn't a gigantic amount of things listed on BarterBee so far, but there's a good amount of things there. I signed up and am going to be listing a ton of my stuff to see if I can offload it and then get a few other things that I actually want in return. Check it out and sign up. The more people using it, the more items to trade, which is always good. It's also a very novel idea and a good alternative to ebay, yahoo, or amazon auctions. It's free for thirty days too. After that there's a small monthly fee, obviously used to cover the hosting fees and such since the site doesn't actually get any revenue from it's users and there isn't any hosted advertising on their site. It's a nice, well-designed site that I would love to see take off.
I also used to use Half.com but then there was the whole fiasco over it closing down and ebay requiring all of Half's users to migrate over to ebay stores, so I tried that and figured it might work out ok. It didn't. To complicate matters, during the migration less than half of my items even transferred over to my ebay store. So I had half of my stuff still over at Half.com while the other half was in an ebay store. It should be pointed out that I had about 300 items listed between the two. Later, ebay announced they'd keep Half.com open. Great, so a good chunk of what I had previously listed on Half.com got moved over to ebay and now they only way to get it back onto Half.com was to enter it all back in (ebay offered no way for ebay store items to be migrated back into Half.com).
It was about that time that I just gave up selling small ticket items online completely. I still have a few things listed on Half.com, but not much. I really hate having all of these old cds and dvds and stuff just sitting around, but I really don't have any way to get rid of them other than tossing them out or giving them away... until I stumbled across BarterBee. It's an online trading site. You list stuff to trade with people and get points when other users request your stuff and you can use those points to request items from people. It's a neat concept.
I should note, however, that there isn't a gigantic amount of things listed on BarterBee so far, but there's a good amount of things there. I signed up and am going to be listing a ton of my stuff to see if I can offload it and then get a few other things that I actually want in return. Check it out and sign up. The more people using it, the more items to trade, which is always good. It's also a very novel idea and a good alternative to ebay, yahoo, or amazon auctions. It's free for thirty days too. After that there's a small monthly fee, obviously used to cover the hosting fees and such since the site doesn't actually get any revenue from it's users and there isn't any hosted advertising on their site. It's a nice, well-designed site that I would love to see take off.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Why Didn't I Do It?
For some reason or another I found myself thinking back to the summer of a few years ago. It was the summer after my junior year of college and I was busy with my internship at Kingland Systems, my current employer, and doing improv comedy as part of Strike Team Improv. It was a good summer for me. I had a job that was paying well, especially considering it was an internship, which usually means no pay at all. I was surrounded by good friends and lived with one for a few days a week instead of making the 35 mile trip home at night. I even had a couple of girls who seemed to be interested in me, and being single at the time, that was just fine by me.
One night after an improv show I decided to forego having dinner with the troupe like I usually would and instead went out with a couple of friends to hang out since we hadn't had much time to spend together that summer. So it was me and two girls out for the night. One of them was a pretty good friend of mine and had been for a few years. The other was an acquaintance of mine, but good friends with the other girl I was with. Since there's not a lot to do out in the country, we decided to just hang out an watch a movie.
We went to the house of my acquaintance to watch since I didn't want to go home to my house and the other girl didn't feel like going to her house either (I couldn't blame her since her parents had been having some pretty intense marriage troubles). Since neither of the girls had seen Office Space and since they had asked me earlier what my job was like, I suggested we watch that. They had no problem with it, so we settled in to watch the movie, one girl sitting on each side of me.
As the movie progressed, the girl who I was acquaintances with slowly snuggled up closer and closer to me. I usually have an extremely hard time picking up on any innuendos or flirting from a girl, but I was reassured this time when I made a quick glance over at my friend. She gave me a wink and a nod and I knew I wasn't simply imagining things. Deciding to be brave, I put my arm around my acquaintance and let her snuggle up close.
After the movie was over, we sat and talked for a little while before my friend decided to head out because "it was getting late". I knew by the way she said it that what she was really doing was allowing my acquaintance and me to have some time alone. As my friend left I eased into conversation with my acquaintance, who was now resting herself in my arms. We talked and talked for hours upon hours about every topic under the sun. Our conversation flowed unbelievably naturally, and it was filled with many laughs, shared sentiments, and commonalities.
While we talked, she had went from simply being nuzzled up under my right arm snuggling with me, to lying her head in my lap as we talked. At the time, I hadn't felt an attraction to any of the girls that I knew in quite a while. My last relationship had ended in a terrible mess and I didn't want to get hurt again. In fact, this was the first night that I had actually been able to be alone with a girl and not feel at least a little bit of resentment towards the opposite sex. Up until then, I had had such a bad taste in my mouth from my last relationship that I couldn't be around a girl and believe that she wasn't going to hurt me somehow.
The night went on and daylight started to approach. I knew I had to get going. I don't remember why, but I had to be at home on the Saturday following our show. It tore me up inside to know that I had to leave. I had finally connected with a girl after the crashing and burning of my last relationship, and feeling her there snuggled up with me was something I had desperately been craving for a long time.
Not wanting to leave, but knowing I had to, I let her walk me up to the door. Before I left we shared a wonderful hug, one of those hugs where you feel completely wrapped up in the other person. As we were still held close to each other our eyes met. I could tell by the way they were sparkling at me and by the look on her face that she wanted me to kiss her. She wasn't going to make the first move, but her gaze told me she was begging for me to press my lips to hers. The look was quite intoxicating, and I had not seen anything like it in a very long time now.
But I didn't kiss her. I told her goodbye and that I'd see her again soon. There was something that held me back from going in for just a simple kiss and to this day I've always wondered why. I have always been very picky about girls (I can count all of the girls I've kissed, in my entire life, on both of my hands and still have a couple of fingers left over) so I've always tried to figure out what it was that wouldn't let me do what I so much wanted to do at that moment. My heart must have known that things just weren't right, even though they felt so much like they were.
The rest of the summer I only saw her a couple of other times. When I did see her next I could tell that she felt rejected and that she had given up on anything ever happening between us. Even though everything felt right that night, there was something that held me back. On that night, however, I did learn one important thing. I learned to trust my heart even if I don't always understand why it feels the way it feels.
One night after an improv show I decided to forego having dinner with the troupe like I usually would and instead went out with a couple of friends to hang out since we hadn't had much time to spend together that summer. So it was me and two girls out for the night. One of them was a pretty good friend of mine and had been for a few years. The other was an acquaintance of mine, but good friends with the other girl I was with. Since there's not a lot to do out in the country, we decided to just hang out an watch a movie.
We went to the house of my acquaintance to watch since I didn't want to go home to my house and the other girl didn't feel like going to her house either (I couldn't blame her since her parents had been having some pretty intense marriage troubles). Since neither of the girls had seen Office Space and since they had asked me earlier what my job was like, I suggested we watch that. They had no problem with it, so we settled in to watch the movie, one girl sitting on each side of me.
As the movie progressed, the girl who I was acquaintances with slowly snuggled up closer and closer to me. I usually have an extremely hard time picking up on any innuendos or flirting from a girl, but I was reassured this time when I made a quick glance over at my friend. She gave me a wink and a nod and I knew I wasn't simply imagining things. Deciding to be brave, I put my arm around my acquaintance and let her snuggle up close.
After the movie was over, we sat and talked for a little while before my friend decided to head out because "it was getting late". I knew by the way she said it that what she was really doing was allowing my acquaintance and me to have some time alone. As my friend left I eased into conversation with my acquaintance, who was now resting herself in my arms. We talked and talked for hours upon hours about every topic under the sun. Our conversation flowed unbelievably naturally, and it was filled with many laughs, shared sentiments, and commonalities.
While we talked, she had went from simply being nuzzled up under my right arm snuggling with me, to lying her head in my lap as we talked. At the time, I hadn't felt an attraction to any of the girls that I knew in quite a while. My last relationship had ended in a terrible mess and I didn't want to get hurt again. In fact, this was the first night that I had actually been able to be alone with a girl and not feel at least a little bit of resentment towards the opposite sex. Up until then, I had had such a bad taste in my mouth from my last relationship that I couldn't be around a girl and believe that she wasn't going to hurt me somehow.
The night went on and daylight started to approach. I knew I had to get going. I don't remember why, but I had to be at home on the Saturday following our show. It tore me up inside to know that I had to leave. I had finally connected with a girl after the crashing and burning of my last relationship, and feeling her there snuggled up with me was something I had desperately been craving for a long time.
Not wanting to leave, but knowing I had to, I let her walk me up to the door. Before I left we shared a wonderful hug, one of those hugs where you feel completely wrapped up in the other person. As we were still held close to each other our eyes met. I could tell by the way they were sparkling at me and by the look on her face that she wanted me to kiss her. She wasn't going to make the first move, but her gaze told me she was begging for me to press my lips to hers. The look was quite intoxicating, and I had not seen anything like it in a very long time now.
But I didn't kiss her. I told her goodbye and that I'd see her again soon. There was something that held me back from going in for just a simple kiss and to this day I've always wondered why. I have always been very picky about girls (I can count all of the girls I've kissed, in my entire life, on both of my hands and still have a couple of fingers left over) so I've always tried to figure out what it was that wouldn't let me do what I so much wanted to do at that moment. My heart must have known that things just weren't right, even though they felt so much like they were.
The rest of the summer I only saw her a couple of other times. When I did see her next I could tell that she felt rejected and that she had given up on anything ever happening between us. Even though everything felt right that night, there was something that held me back. On that night, however, I did learn one important thing. I learned to trust my heart even if I don't always understand why it feels the way it feels.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Everybody Died Last Week
I've tried to make posts the past couple of days but have been foiled by Blogger a good majority of the time. It turns out that whenever I try to access Blogger using Firefox (v 1.0.2), the server throws out an error and won't let me in. Whenever I use the God forsaken browser of demons, Internet Explorer, it lets me in to my account without so much as a hiccup. Seriously, what gives? I'm about ready to give up on Blogger completely and try to find a different way to post, hopefully one that would be able to take all of my archives and migrate them to a different format.
One of the things I've been trying to post about is the death of Mitch Hedberg. At first I thought it was some type of April Fool's joke, but it turns out he really did pass on to the big comedy club in the sky. He has always been one of my favorite comedians, mostly because of his completely deadpan delivery. He had a crazy-awesome ability that allowed him to take the most trivial of truths and turn it on its head. The best way to really describe him, if you've never had the chance to see or hear his act, would be to classify him as a deadpan, more cynical version of Seinfeld. A version of Seinfeld that doesn't actually suck.
One of the saddest things about his death is that I'll never actually get to see him live. He would come through Minneapolis or St. Paul often enough since he is originally from Minnesota and I've always wanted to make it a point to go see him, but something always came up to keep me away. Makes you realize that you can't put everything off forever. Sometimes you just have to do it, like it or not.
In looking for some information about Mitch's life, I came across his entry in wikiquote. It lists a ton of quality quotes from his various stand up routines. Some of my favorites are below, in case you don't feel like wading through all of them on his wiki page.
One of the things I've been trying to post about is the death of Mitch Hedberg. At first I thought it was some type of April Fool's joke, but it turns out he really did pass on to the big comedy club in the sky. He has always been one of my favorite comedians, mostly because of his completely deadpan delivery. He had a crazy-awesome ability that allowed him to take the most trivial of truths and turn it on its head. The best way to really describe him, if you've never had the chance to see or hear his act, would be to classify him as a deadpan, more cynical version of Seinfeld. A version of Seinfeld that doesn't actually suck.
One of the saddest things about his death is that I'll never actually get to see him live. He would come through Minneapolis or St. Paul often enough since he is originally from Minnesota and I've always wanted to make it a point to go see him, but something always came up to keep me away. Makes you realize that you can't put everything off forever. Sometimes you just have to do it, like it or not.
In looking for some information about Mitch's life, I came across his entry in wikiquote. It lists a ton of quality quotes from his various stand up routines. Some of my favorites are below, in case you don't feel like wading through all of them on his wiki page.
You know they call corn on the cob, corn on the cob, but that's how it comes out
of the ground, man. They should call that corn, they should call every other
version corn off the cob. It's not like if you cut off my arm you would call it
Mitch. Then reattach it and call me Mitch-all-together...I like baked potatoes, man. I don't have a microwave oven; it takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want one, because by the time it's done....who knows? I'll throw a potato in and go on vacation.
I was at a bar once, and no one was talking to me 'cuz I just did a show, and I ran into a guy, and instead of saying "excuse me" he said "get the hell out of my way,", so I said "Go to hell", and I ran away. He caught up to me, he had on a hat, a nose ring, an eybrow ring, a goatee, a tongue ring, and 3-earings. He said "Hey man, you have a lot of nerve," and then I said "Hey man, you have a lot of cranium accessories."
I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've travelled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so that it will not fall down.
I hate turtlenecks. I have such a weak neck. Plus if you wear a turtleneck it's like being strangled by a really weak guy ... all day. And if you wear a turtleneck and a backpack it's like a weak midget trying to bring you down.
I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming.
I wrote a script for a guy, and he said he liked it but he thought that I need to rewrite it. I said, "Fuck that, I'll just make a copy."
I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles was a laid-back company. They said "Fuck it. Cut 'em up."
I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He's fuzzy. Get outta here.
2-in-1 is a bullshit term, because 1 is not big enough to hold 2. That's why 2 was created.
Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having. Goddamn it Otto, you are an alcoholic. Goddamn it Otto, you have Lupus ... one of those two doesn't sound right.
I used to play in a Death Metal band. They either loved us or they hated us...or they thought we were "okay". Most Death Metal bands have dark names like "Obituary"..."Mortuary"..."Rigor Mortis". We weren't that intense. We were just "Injured". And later we changed it to "A Capella" as we were walkin' out of the Pawn Shop.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Bloodsimple - A Cruel World CD Review
A good majority of the time, though, when all-star groups such as this come together, the output doesn’t seem to match what it should on paper, but occasionally the combination will coalesce into a band which manages to take all of the individual talents of its members and fuse them together to create something even better than you would have imagined. Bloodsimple, on A Cruel World, take all of their experience and craft a cd that is just commercial enough to have a chance of succeeding in the mainstream, while still remaining brutally heavy enough that it will please all of the metal heads out there.
Bloodsimple’s debut doesn’t easily fall into any of the current popular heavy music sub-genres. They aren’t breakdown laden enough to be called metalcore. They definitely don’t have enough thrash or European influences to be thrown into the likes of the current incarnation of the definition of “metal.” They are even close enough to be schlocky enough to fall under the nu-metal banner. They don’t mix in any emo, so classifying them as emocore is out. They do have melodic moments, however, but not really enough to classify them as melodic metal. What they do have, though, is an amazing combination of all of these sub-genres, smattered throughout the course of this release’s run time.
It is probably safe to say that a good chunk of the people that will be interested in this release will be interested because of the involvement of two members of Vision of Disorder in this band. For all of you VOD fans, you will not be disappointed. More than a few times you can easily hear the strong VOD influence (later VOD I should note, just for clarity’s sake), especially on the slower tempo and more melodic offerings, such as “The Leaving Song” and “Sell Me Out”.
Upon initially listening to the disc, you may notice quite a disparity between the mellow and heavy sections of the cd. Oddly, the one downfall this cd has is that it can’t find a middle ground between the barrage of crunching, in your face songs and the slowed down, introspective metal tunes. There are a couple of songs that try to bridge this gap, but they are the weakest songs to be found on the disc. “Sell Me Out” is one such song and even though it’s not a bad song per se, it feels tired and boring in comparison to many of the other songs. “Running from Nothing” doesn’t so much bridge the gap as much as it simply has two distinct sections to the song—slowed down, melodic verses and grinding choruses.
Beyond those couple of missteps, Bloodsimple are quite capable of audibly ripping you apart. “Path to Prevail”, “Blood in, Blood Out”, “Cruel World”, and “Straight Hate” are all unbelievably strong songs, each containing enough bottled up aggression to cause an unsuspecting listener to spontaneously commit random acts of violence if not kept in check. Without resorting to clichéd blast-beat breakdowns or simplistic drop-tuned chord progressions, these songs are some of the heaviest you’ll have heard in ages.
A combination of metal talent such as what can be found within the ranks of Bloodsimple doesn’t come along very often, and even rarer does it work out that they come together to create a cd which is not only listenable, but a showcase for their combined talents. For the time being, this disc should be sitting at the top of every metal fans “to buy” list, assuming you haven’t already ran out to buy it.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Mudvayne Interview
Last week Jared and I had the priviledge of interviewing Matt, the drummer of Mudvayne. Aside from a mix up with their tour manager, it went smoothly and came out quite well, if a little unbalanced. Let me explain. Jared had planned on asking him some questions about their tour, venues, and other music related stuff whereas I wanted to talk to him a bit about what he does for fun and in his spare time. Unfortunately for poor Jared, Matt happened to be a comic book collector. Once Matt and myself hit on that common thread, the entire interview took a wicked left turn down comic geek road. The majority of the interview turned into Matt and myself talking comics. I was going to post the interview here on my site, but it's pretty large so I'll just link to it instead and you can read it over at Decoy Music if you want to.
When we started the interview, Matt prefaced it by telling us that no questions about the band's abandonment of their onstage makeup would be answered. That was cool by us since we didn't even plan on asking about it since I'm sure they get it all the time. I'm also sure they get asked the same 20 or so questions about their music, touring, and life on the road so it was somewhat apparent that Matt was somewhat distanced and slightly disinterested when answering the music based questions. I'd be the same way if I had to answer the same stuff over and over again. When we started talking about comics, Matt really got into it. No doubt other interviewers didn't ask him about comics, or even if they somehow did they didn't know anything about them.
The interview, at that point, turned more into a conversation between two comic geeks gushing over what they do and don't like about the industry. Honestly, this interview would probably have fit in better over at Newsarama or CBR instead of Decoy, but I hope that maybe seeing Matt as passionate about comics as he is that some of the metalheads out there will pick up a comic or two and keep the industry out of the stagnation it's been in the last few years.
Anyways, since this was basically my first interview with a big name band, or big name anyone for that matter, let me know what you think of it.
When we started the interview, Matt prefaced it by telling us that no questions about the band's abandonment of their onstage makeup would be answered. That was cool by us since we didn't even plan on asking about it since I'm sure they get it all the time. I'm also sure they get asked the same 20 or so questions about their music, touring, and life on the road so it was somewhat apparent that Matt was somewhat distanced and slightly disinterested when answering the music based questions. I'd be the same way if I had to answer the same stuff over and over again. When we started talking about comics, Matt really got into it. No doubt other interviewers didn't ask him about comics, or even if they somehow did they didn't know anything about them.
The interview, at that point, turned more into a conversation between two comic geeks gushing over what they do and don't like about the industry. Honestly, this interview would probably have fit in better over at Newsarama or CBR instead of Decoy, but I hope that maybe seeing Matt as passionate about comics as he is that some of the metalheads out there will pick up a comic or two and keep the industry out of the stagnation it's been in the last few years.
Anyways, since this was basically my first interview with a big name band, or big name anyone for that matter, let me know what you think of it.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Microsoft, You Shady Devil
A short while back, my Xbox started on fire. This happened only a scant week after I received notice from Microsoft that they were recalling the power cords on older Xboxes, which mine was one of. Before I had a chance to get the new cord, the black video game unit went up in smoke, literally. After countless hours on the phone with Microsoft, my mom finally got them to agree to look at our Xbox and fix it, or if it can't be fixed to send us a new (and by new MS means refurbished) one.
Right now my Xbox is still in Microsoft's hands and I have no clue as to if I'll ever get it back or not. Oddly, even though I do not possess an Xbox right now since it is in MS's possession, they still sent me a new power cord. That was nice of them and all, but how about sending me back an Xbox that works for which I can use that power cord.
Now, after reading these two articles, I find out that it really wasn't the power cord that was the problem. Even with the new power cord, my Xbox still would have started on fire because of the slipshod soldering job on the power supply inside the Xbox. I really, really hope that someone finds a way to enact some type of class action lawsuit for this because Microsoft is just being ridiculous in issuing new power cords that will only slightly delay the inevitable destruction of your Xbox if the soldered joints have worn away. If the Xbox wasn't so much better than the PS2 and Gamecube, I'd just switch over to one of those platforms exclusively, but I like the Xbox's games so much more. That, and Live! seals the deal.
Right now my Xbox is still in Microsoft's hands and I have no clue as to if I'll ever get it back or not. Oddly, even though I do not possess an Xbox right now since it is in MS's possession, they still sent me a new power cord. That was nice of them and all, but how about sending me back an Xbox that works for which I can use that power cord.
Now, after reading these two articles, I find out that it really wasn't the power cord that was the problem. Even with the new power cord, my Xbox still would have started on fire because of the slipshod soldering job on the power supply inside the Xbox. I really, really hope that someone finds a way to enact some type of class action lawsuit for this because Microsoft is just being ridiculous in issuing new power cords that will only slightly delay the inevitable destruction of your Xbox if the soldered joints have worn away. If the Xbox wasn't so much better than the PS2 and Gamecube, I'd just switch over to one of those platforms exclusively, but I like the Xbox's games so much more. That, and Live! seals the deal.
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